Driftwood GH2 & GFx Settings

*** THIS IS A CONTINUATION THREAD FROM SERIES 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 WHICH CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE LINKS BELOW - ALL EARLIER DRIFTWOOD SETTINGS CAN BE FOUND & DOWNLOADED ON THESE LINKS ON PAGE 1 OF THEIR RESPECTIVE THREADS***

Another experimental setting in the Apocalypse Now suite. Not really a version 2 but a variation utilising Chris Brandin's other low pass frequency matrix. There are subtle differences between 444 matrix (see Intravenus v1 on other thread) and this one.

The main goal in tuning these settings was to achieve high PSNR (Peak signal to noise ratio) averaging around at least 50dbs on all modes whilst looking at ways of knocking out artefacts. We all know that PSNR shouldn't necessarily be used to judge picture quality, however, elecard's Q results continually prove that a high PSNR is fairly reflective of decent signal to noise whether or not human visual perception 'sees' not much difference. It certainly helps in the grade. A higher PSNR would normally indicate that the reconstruction is of higher quality.

Once again this setting pushes things to the limit and you will need a decent hi-speed SD card to make use of not only very high Intra 24p but also 80Mbps+ averaging for HBR/1080i and 720p modes.

Once again, a big thank you to @cbrandin in analysing and developing the 'Cinema Smooth' matrix.

Driftwood the GH2 'Low Rider' trial Setting and report back any findings. :-)

With Low Rider we are using Quantisation to drive the bitrate and quantisation together with Chris Brandin's excellent AQ routines on top of a fairly mid-range lowpass frequency CQMatrice.

The whole idea of Low Rider is to see how low we can get QP (and how to balance the CQM with Initial Q) for most sorts of pictures without introducing artefacts etc... Subsequently, the encoder resolves great picture detail at Low Rider's Intra modes (and 3 GOP on 720p) without neccesarily over taxing the encoder with an intensive matrix.

The Low Rider matrix is tighter than stock levels but nowhere near as 'pushy' as some of the other Intra matrices of the past. I initially chose a IQ of 16 but felt 17 offered a more balanced overall picture quantisation without greater degrees of DC range.

The result is macroblock QP ranges of 9 to 20 (often lower) for most pictures and perhaps the best overall Intra yet. However, you decide and test.

Low Rider test 2 and 3 have been shelved and the research now forms part of the newer Cluster X series.

Currently, Low Rider eats the following out of your precious (decent) SD card;-

@jdude i would suggest to try both and see what works best for you. In my recent tests i've found the soft to work really well with my 14-140 and my helios 44M. In regards to voight it really depends how you're going to be using it! The voight can be soft and sharp. If wide open, night shoots probably go with sharp, but if your going to do day time/well lit stuff from f5.6 and above go with soft. It also depends what ND filter you are using!!

@strancali to be honest i don't see what a patch as got to do between choosing these two lenses!!!! If money is no object then go for the 17.5mm. The benefit of having the stepless aperture is worth it. There's already topic about 17.5mm with examples! There's also footage in previous topic with the voight 25mm but i still not sure how this will help you decide what lens to go for?!

@Diffusion33 Hi, no I wasn't undecided because of the patch, I just wanted to see how it looks with the 25mm :). Do you think the image quality is the same between the two? I've seen so many sell their 17.5 to get the 25 again so it made me wonder.

@strancali Unfortunately, i do not own either of these lenses, however i have had the pleasure of using the 25mm and it's a wonderful lens. From what i've seen and read the 17.5mm seems to be a superb lens matching the 25 in color and sharpness. I own a couple of stepless lenses and for my money i would go for the 17.5mm for that feature alone.